leaving out fire arms and ammo, what items would you purchase to start stockpiling?  water, canned food, grains and rice
getting into the game a little late but need to start somewhere just looking for advice in the right direction.

A mix of can goods and water. You'd be suprised what you can get for 100 bucks. For example, Chef Boyardee is like 88 cents a can at my local Wally World. Ramen is cheap. I might even spend a few bucks of that 100 and get a membership to BJ's, Costco, or Sams...

what Colt_Sporter said and

Welcome to the SF

Do you have a plan for;
fire?
severe weather?
pregnancy?
job loss?
vehicle loss?

Making a plan will only cost the time and paper to write it on.  A plan will enable you to organize your actions and purchases in the future

Quoted:
Prepare for the most likely first and the least likely last.

So you ask; what is the most likely event?

Quoted:
Start by thinking back over the last 20 years of your life and what emergencies you faced. Things like:

flood
loss of employment
fire
tornado
blizzard
loss of electricity
car died out on the road (happened to me tonight 15 miles out of town - 15 degrees and very windy out)
etc.

these are things that will probably happen again. take steps to deal with those problems first.

SF History—has been posted in SF since I joined the SF:
3 SF members that are recovering from job loss
homes lost to fire posted here in SF
5 or more BOVs totaled by accident
5 now 7 now probably more new little SFers born
1 SF family has suffered the loss of a child to illness.
Visits to the ER due to infection, injury, and insect sting allergy
5 or more hurricanes
1 SFer had to stay a week in the hospital


How should you live your life now that you are a survivalist?

Quoted:
Live like "it" will never happen, prep like "it" will.

Who’s who of the SF (please forgive me if I don’t spell all the names perfectly)
Frank Squid—posts occasionally one of the founders or the founder of SF
TomJefferson(TJ)—top moderator of SF and poster SF family.  TJ is a great source of wisdom and stories.
Paul—suburban SFing and expedition offroading.
Halffast—author of some well known fiction
Feral—homesteading or farming.
frozenny—financial survival.
Protus—apartment survivalism and outdoor skills
die-tryin(dt or DT)—poster BOV of  SF
Ops—lived SF for decades, poster SF family
1bigbunker—builds houses
Ferfal308—he’s living through a collapse in another country
biere—general knowledge
donne3—mom to a bunch of SFers
CJan_NH—generator use and the poster AR15 spare parts kit
Wolfcri—has some good welding skills
Skibane—knows something about EMP and flashlights
shibumiseeker—modern homesteading, off grid living, and BOVs

There are others, but I have not caught the above posters posting trash or foolishness.

Acronym translator;
SF—this survival forum
BOB—Bug Out Bag; also BHB—Bug Home Bag
BOV—Bug Out vehicle
IMHO—In My Humble Opinion
YMMV—Your Mileage May Vary
WttSFp—this post


0-5-38

I would suggest purchasing more of what you guys routinely eat (this also makes it easier to rotate through your stocks, keeping them fresh). Also I wouldn't suggest purchasing grains unless you already have a way to process them. Rice, beans, & canned goods are a good place to start. Buy a food dehydrator and some o2 absorbers and start making your own dehydrated foods. If you don't know how to can, you can find tutorials on the web, or check out your local library. Also keep in mind what you guys are going to do for water, first aid, and heat should something happen affecting one of those resources.

water, rice, beans, pasta, canned goods (variety)

a lot of canned goods can be had for a dollar or 2 a piece.

Two Scepter water cans, 5 gallon
one gallon of unscented bleach
A way to sharpen your knives

Water cans, food, firemaking ability, and fuel.

Look into lighting and how you want to do that. I like kerosene lamps.

Then basic meds.

2 - 55 gallon barrels off Craig's list.  Usually $10 each, I'll figure $40 total to be safe.
4 - LED Walmart lanterns.  $5 each.  $20 total
1 - AM/FM AA battery  radio.  Walgreens, CVS, etc. have these for $15 or less
10 -  AA batteries  $5
20 - cans of canned food.  $20

The above could keep TWO people ALIVE for 30 days, 60 days if you already have some food in your house.  It has the advantage of battery commonality, and no risk of fire.

If I had another $50 to spend I would had a map of my city, a tourniquet, ibuprofen, Tylenol, and a AA LED headlamp.

I would buy some rice if you like it. Its cheap and goes a long way. You can mix in a can of chunk soup if you want to mix things up. I like to mix california vegetables with the rice for normal meals. A vegetarian feast that fills me up just as well as my usual meaty diet. I keep canned veggies for this purpose.

I like to keep bottled water on hand. The 1 gallon jugs seem to leach plastic into the water after a short time, where the smaller clear plastic bottles seem not to. I like to keep a half dozen cases on hand for drinking. I have means to get water if I run out though.

You might consider a water filter, like the Hiker Pro from Katadyn. Shop around for a good price and you will have a few bucks left over for some rice.

If I had to prep in a PURELY SURVIVAL MODE in the short term and ONLY HAD $100 to budget...i.e, a situation where I had to see how well prepped I could be w/ $100...

Even if I was staying in a house or apt, I'd try to obtain the necessary 'tools' to make it OK outdoors, like a homeless person.

*Making, collecting, storing, filtering, potable water would be a top priority.

I'd get a ceramic water filter, the one for about $25 that's posted on here recently. Off ebay. And some cheap tubing to make up a gravity water supply.

If it didn't have time to wait for shipping I'd head to a store where the expensive hiking filters are sold and see if there wasn't a replacement cartridge I could rig up as a gravity filter. Maybe on closeout or just not very expensive. [Interesting, I think I'll research this a bit more] I wouldn't blow my budget on an out of the box filter, nosiree...

Next I'd make sure I had clothes to survive outside and some covering. I'd try to scrounge that w/out any $$ spent. Or Thrift store/Goodwill.

Also a full sized sheet and pillow case and some sort of backpack or something that could be used for one and something I could rip up for webbing. Some material for rags for washing and wiping, blowing my nose, etc.

Footgear, same places. Plastic sheeting, plastic garbage bags. I'd ask in a store to see if someone would give me something that was being thrown away so I can stretch my budget.

Then I'd head back to the Goodwill or thrift store and get a couple pots and utensils, and containers for water, selected based on the senario I thought likely. I'd look for a knife for food prep and and another for heavier work. I'd want a hatchet.

Also a small saw of some sort, a cheap sawzall blade and some tape would do to start. While at the hardware store I'd get some 1/8 nylon rope and some picture wire for snares. Cheapest stuff I could see.

At the same time, I'd be on the lookout to buy the best AA or 2 xAA LED flashlight I saw, probably abt $5. And find some cheap AA batteries.

I'd be worrying about stockpiling some calories. Best place might be the dollar store and I'd get a couple cans of meat, veggies and oatmeal. I'd budget $35 for that. I wouldn't eat it unless I wasn't able to scrounge food during the day.

Also, personal higyne [sp] is high on the list. I'd get some soap from a public restroom to put into a bottle from the garbage, and some paper items. A toothbrush when I stumbled over one. I'd brush with soap if I had to.

I'd constantly be on the llokout for med supplies and in the event I got sick from something that antibiotics would fix and didn't have access to med care, I'm use the antibiotics from a pet store, farm store or Walmart.

An important need would be a safe place to store my preps when I was out looking for more. I'd network with folks to find one.

Every dumpster, trash heap, would be considered like a Christmas present, an opportunity to be opened.

Another important item I' d want to find would be a bicycle. Very important and I think I have the ability to meet folks and get one for little $$$ or even have an old one given to me.

Now TOOLS. Initially, I try to get a $2 pair of imported vicegrips with wire cutters, screwdrivers, large and small, phillips and slotted.

During this time I'd be trying to develop relationships w/ most folks I came in contact with to trade my labor/skills for any kind of handout/resource and also develop long term relationships with them and help them any way I could.

Eventually, I'd probably get lucky and hook up with a nice store cash register or stock clerk girl and she'd take me home and fix me a sammich, give me a needed bath, and tuck me into her nice warm bed.

 [Well, hey, I've done it before...]


Seriously, I think I could be dropped into any city in a stable time and be on my feet in days.

In a year, barring ill health and economic collapse, I would be prosperous.

If there were economic collapse, I would try to look for opportunities to outperform my peers.

This may be somewhat diverging from "what preps would you buy if you had $100" but I sorta got on a roll. But this is close to what I would actually do to survive.


To the OP, to prepare to survive, take the concepts I've written about and scale them/adjust them to your own life situation. This isn't about what and how much you can stockpile, this about a much broader field. Acquiring knowledge and good people skills will be as important if not moreso than how many sacks of rice are in your basement.

The principles are always the same, throughout history.

Come to think about it, I often find perfectly good ceramic and other water filters and at the used building materials places people donate. They cost from $2 to $8 and I bought some last year and they are in my preps.

As one of the many that have suffered from job loss start by purchasing items you consume on a daily basis. Later expand to longer term shelf life items. Its never to late to start and good luck.